This fearless Mormon feminist is transforming her church from the inside out

The morning of her TED Talk, Chelsea Shields zipped around the
parking lot of the Sunset Center in Carmel-By-The-Sea,
California, wearing four-inch espadrilles and a grin that
stretched ear to ear. She talked a mile a minute.

"I could get in a lot of trouble," Shields told me, her blue eyes
bulging, "for giving this talk today."

Like, angry emails from religious leaders?

Shields waved off the suggestion. Hate mail had already made a
permanent residence in her inbox.

"No," she said, "I could be excommunicated."

Excommunicated: As in being cast out of the church she
grew up in. As in, according to Mormon tradition, not being
reunited with her family in the afterlife.

Shields explains her predicament in the TED Talk below.

Why the danger?

Shields is a biological and cultural anthropologist and a Mormon
feminist, an intersection of cultural identities that defies many
of the norms of the culture she grew up in. Her
efforts to persuade other Mormons to her point of view — that
women deserve equal opportunities in the church and outside it —
puts her at risk of a sentence worse than death.

In short, Shields is attempting to reform her church, from
the inside out.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does
not look kindly on conduct contrary to the laws and order
of its faith, evidenced by its decision to excommunicate
Kate Kelly, a lifelong Mormon who spearheaded women's
campaign for the priesthood, last year.

But later that summer day, Shields took the stage at the TED
Fellows Retreat — in a sleeveless silk dress, no less — and
shared her story in one of the most chilling presentations of the
day. Thursday,
her TED Talk went live on the organization's website, where
potentially millions of people around the world will watch it for
free.

Chelsea Shields shares her
story at the TED Fellows Retreat in Carmel-By-The-Sea,
California.Melia Robinson/Tech
Insider

For Shields, the cost of keeping quiet was too high.

The Mormon Church counts 1.6% of
the US population among its members, and rakes in more than
$7 billion annually in tithes and other donations. According
to a 2012 investigation by Reuters, the 135-year-old institution
owns another
$35 billionworth of temples and meeting houses around
the world.

Though it has the population size and assets of some small
countries or multinational corporations, we hold religious
organizations "to a different standard of scrutiny and
accountability than any other sector of our society," Shields
said. "We accept things in our religious lives that we would not
accept in our secular lives."

That's dangerous for society at large, she says, since what the
church defines as moral will spread outward — shaping behavior
and, eventually, laws.

Growing up in Utah, Shields never accepted being excluded because
of her gender.

She inserted herself into pick-up basketball games, and vowed to
become the first female US president. (Her father apparently
said her husband would have to be president, because she'd be
busy caring for the kids.)

In college, religious leaders and peers
pressured Shields to marry. She instead bought a plane ticket
to West Africa and enrolled for a semester at the University of
Ghana.

Shields became the only mother in her family to have a career
outside the home. Working on a dual PhD from Boston University,
she spent a decade researching evolution and the use of the
placebo effect in indigenous medicine.

"I gave my religion a free pass because I loved it,"
Shields said. "Until I stopped. And I realized I had been
allowing myself to be treated as the support staff to the real
work of men."

Shields joined with other female Mormon activists and began
podcasting,
blogging, and writing
articles to raise consciousness. "You can't change what
you can't see," Shields joked. They attempted
"un-ignorable" feats, such as wearing pants to church, in an
effort to level the playing field.

An
unidentified man walks past a group of Mormon
feminists.Rick
Bowmer/AP

In October 2013, more than 150 Mormon women, including Shields,
attempted to attend an all-male priesthood meeting at the
church's Salt Lake City headquarters. At the
semiannual event, leaders speak on a variety of religious
topics and dispense advice to church members.

The women, dressed in their Sunday best and without anti-church
signs or banners, walked in two lines toward the 21,000-seat
convention center. They held fingers in the air, signifying how
many tickets they wanted.

Upon arriving at the doorstep, the church's spokesperson at the
time
said, "We were expecting you."

The women approached one-at-a-time and politely asked for
admission. Each was turned away.

"We were told, 'I'm sorry, this meeting is just for men,'"
Shields said. "We had to step back and watch men get into the
meeting, as young as 12-years-old, ... as we all stood in line.
But not one woman in that line will forget that day, and not one
little boy that walked past us will forget that day."

The group
tried again in 2014 — this time, their numbers more than
doubled — without success.

"If we were a multinational corporation or a government,
and that had happened, there would be outrage," Shields
explained. "But we're 'just' a religion."

Chelsea
Shields.Courtesy of Chelsea
Shields

Today, Shields serves in leadership positions in several Mormon
feminist organizations, including Ordain Women, Mormons for ERA
(Equal Rights Amendment), and LDS Waves: Women Advocating for
Voice and Equality. She also contributed to a recently published
anthology titled
"Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings."

Shields and her cohorts receive hate mail daily, sometimes
containing death threats, and have lost jobs, relationships, and
good standing in the community as punishment for their advocacy.
Brigham Young University severed its professional ties with
Shields, an alumna, after her advocacy started to make noise.

She expected this level of vitriol from members of the church and
the religious right.

What surprised Shields were the equal measures of hostility from
the secular left.

When she tells her story, and explains what she's fighting for,
people tend to blow her off. They respond with, "Oh, all
religious people are crazy" or "stupid"; "Don't pay attention to
religion, they're going to be homophobic and sexist"; or "If you
don't like it, why don't you just leave?"

Doing so can be very dangerous, according to Shields.

"Religion is more than belief. It's power and it's
influence," Shields said, "and that influence affects all of us,
every day, regardless of your own belief."

Protesters
hold signs in front of a Mormon Church during a "No on Prop 8"
rally in Los Angeles, California.Damian Dovarganes/AP

The church has a storied history of mobilizing its 15
million members. In 2008, the Mormon Church raised an
estimated $22
million to fight same-sex marriage in California. The New
York Times reported that Mormons composed
up to 90% of the early volunteers who walked door to door in
support of Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment that
made same-sex marriage illegal. Mormons came out in droves on
election day, likely
tipping the vote toward passage.

Forty years ago, the church took a devastating blow at the Equal
Rights Amendment, a proposed amendment to the Constitution
that granted women equal rights under the law.
Concerned that the amendment might "stifle many God-given
feminine instincts" and encourage homosexuality, Mormons launched
letter-writing campaigns, flooded women's conferences that were
meant to gauge support, and invited anti-E.R.A. activists to
speak at pulpits nationwide.

According to Shields, while it might be easier to dismiss the
so-called "religious crazies," we risk something much greater
when we allow the Mormon Church and other faith-based
organizations to oppress women on a daily basis.

Shields believes that if her daughter ever wants to hold a
leadership position in her church without receiving death
threats, or if the words "women" and "priesthood" may ever be
uttered in the same sentence — these conversations must continue.
So must her activism.

Chelsea Shields.D'Arcy
Benincosa

Of course, challenging someone's religious beliefs is not easy.
Shields should know. She and her parents have scrutinized each
other's morality for 10 years, striving to find a place of
respect in the middle. It's a constant tightrope walk.

The key to these conversations, according to Shields, is respect.
And persistence.

"I'm working on my people," Shields said in closing at her TED
Talk. The auditorium was dead silent, save for the clicks of
Shields' espadrilles on the stage. She smiled.